Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Holiday Flix: Nice Girls Don't Explode (1987)

 Love is in the air...or is that Gasoline I'm smelling?

This is Nice Girls Don't Explode, a 1987 Comedy that is quirky as hell.  It's so quirky that I can just picture the Director dressed as a Mime the whole time.

The Film is about a young lady with arrested development due to her mother keeping her from boys.  The girl is convinced that she summons fire when she's, well, horny.  It was nice of you to mix the Plot of Firestarter with the Characters from Carrie.

The Writer and Directors well, didn't do a whole lot of note Film-wise outside of this.  The Actors and Actresses were in Films throughout the 1980s such as Real Genius, Valley Girl and The Outsiders.  I need to review that someday, don't I?

To find out how this weird little tale plays out, read on...

We first see our Characters when the Boy and Girl are both young, with the girl's Mom not letting her be around him.

Years later, the young lady is going out on her first Date in a year.

Can you tell?
At her date, fires break out everywhere when she gets excited, be it from the guy touching her or just paying her attention.

He makes one last attempt to make it work by kissing her...and his car explodes in flames!
So that means no second date.

We soon find out the reason for the fires- her Mother.

She conspires with a man named Ellen- played by Wallace Shawn!- to gaslight her daughter into never dating any man!
At a Gym, - doing Aerobics, since the '80s- she meets the boy from the beginning.

He's now grown up and is working towards a Ping Pong Scholarship.
Is it between him and Forrest Gump?

Naturally, sparks fly.
Yes, that was a pun.
They have a date and Mom can't manage to set off some fire where they are, so Aptril thinks that all is well.

Cut to an unseen date- we see her leave and then later arrive at home via Fire Truck- where she gets it right that time.

Is this romance doomed?
Mom keeps scheming as Andy's half-baked plans continue to almost work...and then fail miserably.

Framing him as a sex fiend should do the trick, no?
He makes a big, bold move...that doesn't exactly work out.
The Mom saves him and, in the process, drops the remote for all of the explosives she set.

Chekhov's Pyro pays off and the truth is revealed.
Mom tries one last plan- try to convince them that April will literally explode if and when she has sex.

Unsurprisingly, they don't buy it.

However, Ellen falls in love with April- after meeting her once- early in the Film and plants a bomb in the house when he sees her with Andy.
It blows up, but this is a Comedy, so nobody is actually hurt.

April and Andy try to trick Mom one last time...but she's too smart for that.

She lets them get together though and they all live happily ever after.  The End.
A silly, but mostly quite fun Film.  As I said in the Introduction, the Film is *really* quirky.  The Songs, the Acting, the Writing- all of it.

If that's not for you, this Film is NOT for you- at all.

For fans of it, there's a lot to enjoy.  It's about one step away from being a live-action cartoon, what with the Writing, the pratfalls and how people get 'scorched' but never really hurt by explosions or fire.  Some effects are pretty much right out of Looney Tunes.

If you're really sensitive about Cats, there's allot of jokes about the Cat being in peril.  It- like everyone- is never really hurt, but there are many bits you probably still won't like.

Like Wilder Napalm, this is a silly Comedy about fire and romance.  Its heart is in the right place, even if its tone is all over the map.  I do love how the Credits are made out of a Scrapbook though.  Kudos.

I hope you got whatever love and affection you desired today.  Just don't gaslight your kids, folks.

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